Aertel/Ceefax and others, do you use them?

mikemac

I use Aertel most every day.
Handy for checking the lotto numbers and the schedules, mainly 180 What's on Now or 183 for films

I know most of the sports pages too and reading the headlines on 102

But saw another thread over in Ranting and Raving blasting the whole thing.

Since this is the Television forum, is this something you use? I check it most anytime I watch TV?

Or do you think it's outdated?
I suppose I should state I only have the 4 Irish channels. I'm not aware of extra services you can use that maybe Sky have.

amacachi

Yeah still use it fairly often. If I'm not watching anything in particular I'll usually flick through the news and sports but if I've the laptop open and am watching something I'll generally check online.

Nerdkiller1991

I used to use them back in the day. So many great things to do on it, news, updates, weather, the lot. Its just a shame that its going to be phased out with the digital transition. Screw modern graphics, I want my blocky stills!

Carl Sagan

Normally just check 180 for what's on. Rarely watch tv so it's not very often.

JonathanAnon

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah still use it fairly often. If I'm not watching anything in particular I'll usually flick through the news and sports but if I've the laptop open and am watching something I'll generally check online.

I have my TV on my computer, so text (which I used to use a lot) has been superseded by the Internet..

anotherlostie

Today - never. But I still remember being so excited when we got our first teletext TV at home. I was addicted to it - checking sports news, Bamboozle on C4:D etc etc. I used to drive my family insane by flicking on the text during shows.

Now I've got the internet on my phone - much faster and much flashier!

Caitlinn

I use it regularly and find it very useful for getting a quick rundown of what's on TV for the night. I also find it good for checking lotto numbers and getting the weather forecast.

Rockery Woman

Not so much nowadays, used to use Aertel for weather forecasts - but MT Cranium keeps me well informed

Skid

Analogue text like Aertel and Ceefax is very much underrated.

It is much faster to access than any Digital Text, it's being scrapped as part of a dogmatic belief in all things Digital.

I always liked Aertel and Ceefax - they were the first places you could access news on demand rather than waiting for the news headlines on the TV or Radio.

There were occasionally some hilarious film reviews on Aertel page 183, I never found out who was responsible. Loved them.

OPENROAD

Not really Aertel, might look at it for the news

But back in the day Ceefax was great, the days before Sky Sports page 303 for the latest football score, I would spend the evening refreshing the page

ITV's Oracle was also good.

murpho999

Never use Teletext anymore, completely replaced by internet on laptop and iPhone.

Was great in its day though, but I could not go back to waiting for pages to load etc.....surely time to be put to bed like telegrams were?

Mr.Nice Guy

I still use Aertel to check out the football news and the proper news, check out what films are on and the weather. I think it's a handy service. Teletext was the bee's knees though. I still remember the sadness of Digitiser's demise and no more Mr Biffo.

Lemag

I've been using Aertel for years. I used to get a fair bit of stick in the computer labs in college whenever I was caught with it up on my screen, the whole of the internet being at my finger tips an' all.

cashback

Used to spend many a Saturday afternoon refreshing Aertel pg 221 for the football scores.
The one thing that used to drive me mad was trying to check cinema times. I knew Carlow was 19/25 and whenever I checked it seemed to be one or two pages past. Infuriating.

Penn

Used to use it all the time. Especially the Ch4 stuff like Digitiser/Gamecentral, Mega-Zine, Planet Sound, and of course who can forget Dr.Nick. But they're just phasing everything out now so it's not much use. Can't even look at news headlines on Teletext since it's only Holidays and stuff now.

Usually just check what's on telly or sports results (if the tv remote is closer than the laptop)

BrianD3

I would still be using Ceefax a lot were it not for the fact that it disappeared from UPC a couple of months back. First it went from BBC 1 now it's gone completely.

With ITV/C4 Teletext also effectively gone for over a year I'm stuck with Aertel. It is an abysmal service compared to the other two.

mike65

On Sat so have to use that text system which is sometimes rather slow, football goals/results are the only thing I bother with.